Plutarch Quotes
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Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people,… he turned to his friend and said, 'Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?'
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That proverbial saying, 'Ill news goes quick and far.'
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From Themistocles began the saying, 'He is a second Hercules.'
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The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.
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Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, 'Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,-Sleep before Death.'
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What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.
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Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.
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It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
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Philosophy is an act of living.
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Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, ''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.
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Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
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By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?
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Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'.
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Marius said, 'I see the cure is not worth the pain.'
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The ripeness of adolescence is prodigal in pleasures, skittish, and in need of a bridle.
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An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
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Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, 'It is better to make friends at home,' Anacharsis replied, 'Then you that are at home make friendship with me.'
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God alone is entirely exempt from all want of human virtues, that which needs least is the most absolute and divine.
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To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.
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As Meander says, 'For our mind is God;' and as Heraclitus, 'Man's genius is a deity.'
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Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
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If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.
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Character is long-standing habit.
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The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.